Eavesdropping conversations on the way to cricket grounds is always a joy. This was today's, while wandering across Queen's Gardens. Australia are up against it. India lead by 170 with nine second-innings wickets remaining. Australia's chances of beating their own world record with a 17th successive Test victory look slim, but only a fool would write them off.

''So there he was, mate, wearing all this ECB regalia, you know all the badges and stuff? ''That's awful. What a jerk.'' ''Yeah, I thought, I wanted to say, 'You're at the wrong game, mate. This is Australia vs India. It's not bloody England.' I mean, he was there, in the row next to me, wearing all this stuff.'' ''That's crazy.'' ''Yeah, I really wish I'd said something. Like, this is about Australia beating India, it's got nothing to do with the ECB.'' ''Right. Not sure if we're gonna beat 'em though.'' ' 'Long way to go, mate. Can't ever write off the Aussies. Go Australia. Knock the smile of that ECB guy's face.''

It sounds as if David Morgan has arrived.

Day 3: Lunch: India 158-5, 33 overs. Lead 271

The cream of Indian batsmanship was rudely shoved aside within eight overs at the WACA this morning. Well, not rudely, quite politely actually. You have to be so careful not to give a false impression when Australia are being monitored for any incidence of bad sportsmanship.

Australia were at their sharpest in the opening hour, a confident side making a concerted effort to extend a run of 16 successive Test wins when so much was stacked against them. They have not lost a Test at home for four years, they have not lost in Perth for 11. They needed to stage a supreme recovery to extend such a proud record.

India led by 170 runs, with nine wickets intact, and an early statement of intent from their quartet of fast bowlers was essential. How they provided it, with Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly dismissed in a defiant statement that the Test was not yet over.

It was an excellent morning - the best session of the match. Brett Lee was at his most animated and so was the WACA crowd, which finally felt like a pumped-up, committed Test crowd, as opposed to the, dare it be suggested, slightly stupefied atmosphere that prevailed over much of the first two days.

Only six teams in history have scored more than 350 in a fourth innings to win a Test, and Australia have done it only once on home soil - when they scored 369-6 to beat Pakistan in Hobart eight years ago. The WACA pitch was holding together well, but Australia were fielding an inexperienced opening batting combination. The general feeling was that 350 was the most they might chase - and that meant dismissing India for no more than 230.

Four wickets fell, but India added 106 before lunch, and had cause to thank their nightwatchman, Irfan Pathan, for batting through the morning session. Australia has little time for the nightwatchman concept, but Pathan played bravely and intelligently, driving and cutting selectively, and was unbeaten on 45 at the interval.

But India's experienced and feted batting quartet, perhaps all of them on their last tour of the Great Brown Land, all failed to leave Australia with the memory of a matchwinning innings. In no time at all, Sehwag had been bowled off his pads by Clark's inswinger; Dravid adjudged caught at the wicket, driving at Lee; Tendulkar leg before, on the walk, as Lee continued an impressive morning's work; and Ganguly, the most lax of all, out for nought to Mitchell Johnson as a furtive, retreating edge flew to first slip.

Day 3: Tea: India 245-8, 65 overs. Lead 363

Ricky Ponting has led Australia to 16 consecutive Test victories and yet his captaincy is under scrutiny. In the marquees around the WACA, in the commentary boxes and the VIP bars, former Test players wonder about the quality of his leadership. It sounds dreadfully unfair, but it is happening all the same.

To the outside world, it is whether Ponting's Australia play within the spirit of the game that has been endlessly debated. But to the old pros, it is his tactical acumen which is most regularly discussed.

Ponting's Australia wins Test matches almost by default, but he will never be entirely forgiven for being the captain who lost the 2005 Ashes. A historic winning trot can be dismissed with an airy wave of the hand and an insistence that any captain would have won Test matches with two ''go to'' bowlers like Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne. It would not take much of a stutter in Australia's form for the criticism to become more intense.

Even Ponting's supporters were disturbed by his tactics in the afternoon session as he bowled Andrew Symonds and Michael Clarke in tandem for 16 overs, a crucial period in which India, in the guise of their last recognised batting pair, VVS Laxman and Mahindra Singh Dhoni, quietly stretched the lead from 300 to 350. There was an undercurrent of unrest among a WACA crowd that had been so animated before lunch. ''Make Hussey captain,'' someone shouted.

Symonds and Clarke took six wickets on the last day in Sydney when Australia pulled off a miraculous win. When Australia do not select a specialist spinner, both are expected to do their share of bowling. And Shaun Tait's fast bowling has been so off colour on his return to Test cricket that Ponting was hardly spoilt for choice. Not as much a ''go to'' bowler as a ''leave alone'' one, Tait had never recovered from the realisation that the WACA pitch was not the fiery strip that he had expected.

But in such a crucial phase of the match, Ponting's reliance on two lesser bowlers was hard to justify. Symonds, after switching from medium-pace to off-spin, removed Dhoni for 38, paddling a legside catch to the springing wicketkeeper, Adam Gilchrist, and added Anil Kumble four balls later.

By then, though, with India's lead above 350, many suspected the match had gone. Far better, surely, a final do-or-die burst from Brett Lee. Even three overs approaching his best, and brought back a little too soon, was surely preferable to a longer, more refreshed spell when the game may already have been lost.

Day 3: Close: Australia 65-2 , 15 overs. Target 413

A beautiful summer's evening, a pitch still earning marks for good behaviour and roughly an hour for Australia to bat. Had India's bowlers been facing Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer, they might have regarded it as a disconcerting little session. Such a large fourth-innings target had only been successfully chased once before in Test history, but Hayden, especially, might have bulldozed it down to a more manageable size by stumps.

That, though, is in the past. Hayden, out with a hamstring injury, and Langer, his pesky sidekick, teamed up again today for a tour of the radio and tv boxes, but it was the inexperienced Test opening pairing of Phil Jaques and Chris Rogers out in the middle. Both failed for the second time in the match, Rogers enduring a disheartening debut in front of his home crowd.

Jaques and Rogers have been understudies to Hayden and Langer for a long time, perhaps too long a time. Jaques had a flyer to his Test career against Sri Lanka earlier this winter but in Perth the Indian left-arm quicks have drawn him into the outswinger with ease. Langer knew the art of a good leave; Jaques, for all his strength square on the offside, flirts with danger. Rogers, understandably feeling his way, has looked a bit of a scuffler. Irfan Pathan rooted out both of them by the close, Rogers in his third over, Jaques in his fifth.

Ask Australian judges to nominate an exciting young opening batsman to take charge over the next decade and expressions stay blank. Hayden will be back from injury in Adelaide, but the loss of an influential opening partnership is problem for Ponting. The old guard are right to remark that captaining Australia is becoming a little bit more problematical.

Australia have not lost a home Test since Adelaide more than four years ago when Ponting scored a double hundred in Australia's first innings, but India still won by four wickets. Ponting would dream of another double hundred, this time in a winning cause, tomorrow but even a captain known as 'Punter' won't be betting on it.